Posthumously published poetry. Some of these are extracted from existing poems and given titles. Subsequent entries in Fisher's Scrap Books can be found under that heading.
AMELIORATION AND THE FUTURE, MAN'S NOBLE TASKS
Fall, fall, ye mighty temples to the ground:
Not in your sculptured rise
Is the real exercise
Of human nature's brightest power found.
'Tis in the lofty hope, the daily toil,
'Tis in the gifted line,
In each far thought divine,
That brings down Heaven to light our common soil.
'Tis in the great, the lovely, and the true;
'Tis in the generous thought,
Of all that man has wrought,
Of all that yet remains for man to do.
In Selections from the British Poets 1851
These are the last three verses of 'Hindoo and Mahommedan Buildings', Fisher, 1835
CHILDREN
A word will fill the little heart
With pleasure and with pride;
It is a harsh, a cruel thing,
That such can be denied.
And yet how many weary hours
Those joyous creatures know;
How much of sorrow and restraint
They to their elders owe!
How much they suffer from our faults!
How much from our mistakes!
How often, too, mistaken zeal
An infant's misery makes!
We overrule and overteach,
We curb and we confine,
And put the heart to school too soon,
To learn our narrow line.
No: only taught by love to love,
Seems childhood's natural task;
Affection, gentleness, and hope,
Are all its brief years ask.
From (I think) The Casquet of Gems, 1875
This is an extract from Etty's Rover, Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1835
DESPAIRING LOVE
In sooth 'twas foolishness to dream
Of ever loving thee.
The flowers I fling upon the stream
Tell what my fate will be.
Fairer and fresher than at first
Light bubbles round them play,
The wind comes by, the bubbles burst,
And they are swept away !
I lov'd you, scarcely I know why.
And still less when or how.
Perchance 'twas for your falcon eye,
Or for your noble brow :
It stole on me unconsciously.
Like dew upon the flower,
I know not how my heart could be
So captured in an hour.
It was a sense of happiness,
A vision of delight,
My heart shed forth its own excess
Till all around grew bright ;
Things I had utterly disdain'd
Now pleasant to me grew.
An added zest each pleasure gain'd.
For they were shared with you.
I was so happy, and all seem'd
So happy, too, with me,
I marvell'd that I had not dream'd
How sweet our life would be !
Too soon the false light was remov’d,
The veil flung from the flame.
My tears first taught me that I lov’d,
And grief and knowledge came,
I am not loved ; weak, blind, and vain,
What could I hope from thee ?
The thought of being lov'd again
Is dream too wild for me.
The moment that my love I knew,
That moment was despair,
What had my foolish heart to do
With such an image there ?
Yet I must love thee ; but such love
As might beseem a slave,
The tenderness of the wood-dove,
The silence of the grave !
To breathe the air you breathe, to catch
The lightest word of thine,
The looks of thy dark eyes to watch,
Although they are not mine.
My cheek has faded for thy sake,
The tears have dimm'd my eyes,
And yet it soothes me thus to make
For thee some sacrifice !
Would that my sea, so passion-toss’d,
Could make thine own more fair !
My happiness, that were well lost,
If added to thy share.
Thine, only thine I and when that death
Shall force these links apart,
I’ll die, thy name on my last breath,
Thine image on my heart !
SECOND FITTE
Oh pray thee do not name his name !
I cannot bear the sound ;
Too much the echo of that word
In my own heart is found.
Oh breatlie it not ! that name recalls
All that I would forget,
A hope long since tum'd into tears,
A still but deep regret.
It calls to me a happy time,
When, like a bird in spring.
My heart was in its sweetest tune,
Was on its lightest wing.
It minds me, too, how that light song
Was into mourning changed,
And what a weight fell on the wings
That had so gaily ranged.
It tells me, too, I cannot trust
Thee as I trusted then,
For who that has been once deceiv'd
Holds such belief again ?
It tells me I was once belov'd,
And that I now am not.
And that, forgotten as I am,
Yet I have not forgot.
Then do not speak of him to me,
I cannot hear his name !
It is a torch that lights again
A long since darkened flame.
And deemest thou that he was *
Because my hrow seem'd gay ?
Oh I have veiled each outward sign
With more than eastern sway.
What tho' around yon fallen pile
The ivy greenly wreathe.
Yet not the less the ruin'd wall
Lies worn and rent heneath.
I've sear'd the wound I cannot heal.
But still the wound is there ;
Then pray thee do not name his name,
'Tis more than I can hear !
* The word illegible; but the sense can be gathered without it.
A manuscript poem included in Jerdan's Memoir to L. E. L. attached to a reissue of the novel, Romance and Reality, 1852
THE FIRST AVOWAL
It was no fancy, he had named the name
Of love, and at the thought her cheek grew flame ;
It was the first time her young ear had heard
A lover's burning sigh, or silver word :
Her thoughts were all confusion, but most sweet ;
Her heart beat high, but pleasant was its beat.
She murmur'd over many a snatch of song
That might to her own feelings now belong ;
She thought upon old histories she had read,
And placed herself in each high heroine's stead ;
Then woke her lute, — oh ! there is little known
Of music's power till aided by love's own.
And this is happiness : Oh ! love will last
When all that made it happiness is past, —
When all its hopes are as the glittering toys
Time present offers, time to come destroys,—
When they have been too often crush'd to earth
For further blindness to their little worth, —
When fond illusions have dropt one by one
Like pearls from a rich carcanet, till none
Are left upon life's soil'd and naked string, —
And this is all what time will ever bring !
The Album of Love, 1841
Quoted from 'Juliet After the Masquerade' in The Troubadour
FLOWERS LOVE'S LANGUAGE
Beautiful language! Love's peculiar, own,
But only to the spring and summer known.
Ah! little marvel in such clime and age
As that of our too earth-bound pilgrimage,
That we should daily hear that love is fled,
And hope grown pale, and lighted feelings dead.
Not for the cold, the careless to impart,
By such sweet signs, the silence of the heart:
But surely in the countries where the sun
Lights loveliness in all he shines upon,--
Where love is as a mystery and a dream,
One single flower upon life's troubled stream;
There, there, perchance, may the young bosom thrill,
Feeling and fancy linger with love still.
The Album of Love, 1844
Quoted from 'The Oriental Nosegay by Pickersgill' in The Troubadour
HAPPY HOURS
Where are they — those happy hours,
Link'd with everything I see,
With the colour of the flowers,
With the shadow of the tree!
Still the golden light is falling.
As when first I saw the place;
I can hear the sweet birds calling
To their young and callow race.
Still the graceful trees are bending,
Heavy with the weight of bloom,
Lilac and laburnum blending
With the still more golden broom;
Still the rosy May hath bowers
With her paler sister made;
Where, where are the happy hours
I have pass'd beneath their shade?
Ah! those hours are turn'd to treasures
Hidden deep the heart within;
That heart has no dearer pleasures
Than the thought of what has been.
Every pleasure in remembrance,
Is like coined gold, whose claim
Rises from the stump'd resemblance
Which bestows a worth and name.
Still doth memory inherit
All that once was sweet and fair.
Like a soft and viewless spirit
Bearing perfume through the air;
Not a green leaf, doom'd to wither,
But has link'd some chain of thought —
Not a flower by spring brought hither,
But has some emotion brought.
Let the lovely ones then perish,
They have left enough behind,
In the feelings that we cherish,
Thoughts that link'd them with the mind.
Summer haunts of summer weather,
Almost is it sweet to part;
For ye leave the friends together,
To whom first ye link'd my heart.
May 31, 1836.
From Blanchard's Literary Remains
LOVE AUGURIES
There are a thousand fanciful things
Link'd round the young heart's imaginings.
In its first love-dream, a leaf or a flower,
Is gifted then with a spell and a power ;
A shade is an omen, a dream is a sign,
From which the maiden can well divine
Passion's whole history. Those only can tell
Who have loved as young hearts can love so well,
How the pulses will beat, and the cheek will be dyed,
When they have some love augury tried.
Oh ! it is not for those whose feelings are cold,
Wither'd by care, or blunted by gold ;
Whose brows have darken'd with many years,
To feel again youth's hopes and fears —
What they now might blush to confess,
Yet what made their spring-day's happiness !
The Album of Love, 1841
Quoted from 'The Indian Bride' in The Improvisatrice
LOVE NURSED BY SOLITUDE
Young Love, thou art belied : they speak of thee,
And couple with thy mention misery ;
Talk of the broken heart, the wasted bloom,
The spirit blighted, and the early tomb ;
As if these waited on thy golden lot, —
They blame thee for the faults that thou hast not.
Art thou to blame for that they bring to thee,
The soil and weight of their mortality ?
How can they hope that ever links will hold
Form'd, as they form them now, of the harsh gold?
Or worse than even this, how can they think
That vanity will bind the failing link ?
How can they dream that thy sweet life will bear
Crowds', palaces' and cities' heartless air ?
When looks and thoughts alike must feel the chain,
And nought of life is real but its pain ;
Where the young spirit's high imaginings
Are scorn'd and cast away as idle things ;
Where, think or feel, you are foredoom'd to be
A marvel, and a sign for mockery ;
Where none must wander from the beaten road, —
All alike champ the bit and feel the goad.
It is not made for thee, young Love ! — away !
To where the green earth laughs to the clear day ;
To the deep valley, where a thousand trees
Keep a green court for fairy revelries ; —
To some small island in a lonely lake,
Where only swans the diamond waters break ;
Where the pine hangs in silence o'er the tide,
And the stream gushes from the mountain side ;
These, Love, are haunts for thee : where canst thou brood
With thy sweet wings furl'd — but in solitude !
The Album of Love, 1841
Poem from The Troubadour without the opening lines.
NIGHT AT SEA
The lovely purple of the noon's bestowing
Has vanished from the waters;, where it flung
A royal colour, such as gems are throwing
Tyrian or regal garniture among.
'Tis night, and overhead the sky is gleaming,
Thro' the slight vapour trembles each dim star;
I turn away — my heart is sadly dreaming
Of scenes they do not light, of scenes afar.
My friends, my absent friends!
Do you think of me, as I think of you?
By each dark wave around the vessel sweeping,
Farther am I from old dear friends removed;
Till the lone vigil that I now am keeping,
I did not know how much you were beloved.
How many acts of kindness little heeded,
Kind looks, kind words, rise half reproachful now !
Hurried and anxious, my vex'd life has speeded.
And memory wears a soft accusing brow.
My friends, my absent friends!
Do you think of me, as I think of you?
The very stars are strangers, as I catch them
Athwart the shadowy sails that swell above;
I cannot hope that other eyes will watch them
At the same moment with a mutual love.
They shine not there, as here they now are shining;
The very hours are changed. — Ah, do ye sleep?
O'er each home pillow midnight is declining —
May some kind dream at least my image keep!
My friends, my absent friends!
Do you think of me, as I think of you?
Yesterday has a charm, To-day could never
Fling o'er the mind, which knows not till it parts
How it turns back with tenderest endeavour
To fix the past within the heart of hearts.
Absence is full of memory, it teaches
The value of all old familiar things;
The strengthener of affection, while it reaches
O'er the dark parting, with an angel's wings.
My friends, my absent friends!
Do you think of me as I think of you?
The world, with one mast element omitted —
Man's own especial element, the earth;
Yet, o'er the waters is his rule transmitted
By that great knowledge whence has power its birth.
How oft on some strange loveliness while gazing
Have I wish'd for you — beautiful as new.
The purple waves like some wild army raising
Their snowy banners as the ship cuts through.
My friends, my absent friends!
Do you think of me, as I think of you?
Bearing upon its wings the hues of morning,
Up springs the flying fish like life's false joy,
Which of the sunshine asks that frail adorning
Whose very light is fated to destroy.
Ah, so doth genius on its rainbow pinion
Spring from the depths of an unkindly world;
So spring sweet fancies from the heart's dominion —
Too soon in death the scorched-up wing is furl’d.
My friends, my absent friends!
Whate'er I see is linked with thoughts of you.
No life is in the air, but in the waters
Are creatures, huge, and terrible and strong;
The sword-fish and the shark pursue their slaughters,
War universal reigns these depths along.
Like some new island on the ocean springing,
Floats on the surface some gigantic whale,
From its vast head a silver fountain flinging,
Bright as the fountain in a fairy tale.
My friends, my absent friends!
I read such fairy legends while with you.
Light is amid the gloomy canvass spreading,
The moon is whitening the dusky sails,
From the thick bank of clouds she masters, shedding
The softest influence that o'er night prevails.
Pale is she like a young queen pale with splendour,
Haunted with passionate thoughts too fond, too deep;
The very glory that she wears is tender,
The very eyes that watch her beauty fain would weep.
My friends, my absent friends!
Do you think of me, as I think of you?
Sunshine is ever cheerful, when the morning
Wakens the world with cloud-dispelling eyes;
The spirits mount to glad endeavour, scorning
What toil upon a path so sunny lies.
Sunshine and hope are comrades, and their weather
Calls into life an energy like spring's;
But memory and moonlight go together,
Reflected in the light that either brings.
My friends, my absent friends!
Do you think of me, then? I think of you.
The busy deck is hush'd, no sounds are waking
But the watch pacing silently and slow;
The waves against the sides incessant breaking,
And rope and canvass swaying to and fro.
The topmast sail, it seems like some dim pinnacle
Cresting a shadowy tower amid the air;
While red and fitful gleams come from the binnacle,
The only light on board to guide us — where?
My friends, my absent friends!
Far from my native land, and far from you.
On one side of the ship, the moonbeam's shimmer
In luminous vibrations sweep the sea,
But where the shadow falls, a strange pale glimmer
Seems, glow-worm like, amid the waves to be.
All that the spirit keeps of thought and feeling,
Takes visionary hues from such an hour;
But while some phantasy is o'er me stealing,
I start — remembrance has a keener power.
My friends, my absent friends!
From the fair dream I start to think of you.
A dusk line in the moonlight I discover,
What all day long vainly I sought to catch;
Or is it but the varying clouds that hover
Thick in the air, to mock the eyes that watch?
No; well the sailor knows each speck, appearing,
Upon the tossing waves, the far-off strand;
To that dark line our eager ship is steering.
Her voyage done — to-morrow we shall land.
August 15. L. E. L.
[1838]
From Blanchard's Literary Remains
THE POLAR STAR
This star sinks below the horizon in certain latitudes. I watched it sink lower and lower every night, till at last it disappeared.
A star has led the kindling sky —
A lovely northern light —
How many planets are on high,
But that has left the night!
I miss its bright familiar face;
It was a friend to me,
Associate with my native place
And those beyond the sea.
It rose upon our English sky,
Shone o'er our English land,
And brought back many a loving eye
And many a gentle hand.
It seem'd to answer to my thought,
It called the past to mind,
And with its welcome presence brought
All I had left behind.
The voyage, it lights no longer, ends
Soon on a foreign shore;
How can I but recall the friends
Whom I may see no more?
Fresh from the pain it was to part —
How could I bear the pain?
Yet strong the omen in my heart
That says — We meet again.
Meet with a deeper, dearer love;
For absence shows the worth
Of all from which we then remove,
Friends, home, and native earth.
Thou lovely polar star! mine eyes
Still turned the first on thee,
Till I have felt a sad surprise
That none look'd up with me.
But thou hast sunk below the wave,
Thy radiant place unknown;
I seem to stand beside a grave,
And stand by it alone.
Farewell! — ah, would to me were given
A power upon thy light,
What words upon our English heaven
Thy loving rays should write!
Kind messages of love and hope
Upon thy rays should be;
Thy shining orbit would have scope
Scarcely enough for me.
Oh, fancy, vain as it is fond,
And little needed too;
My friends! I need not look beyond
My heart to look for you.
From Blanchard's Literary Remains
THE PRIDE OF LOVE
'Tis strange with how much power and pride
The softness is of love allied ;
How much of power to force the breast
To be in outward show at rest. —
How much of pride that never eye
May look upon its agony !
Ah ! little will the lip reveal
Of all the burning heart can feel.
Oh ! why should woman ever love,
Trusting to one sole star above ;
And fling her little chance away
Of sunshine, for its doubtful ray !
The Album of Love, 1841
Quoted from 'The Troubadour - Canto IV'
TO MRS . . .
My own kind friend, long years may pass
Ere thou and I shall meet,
Long years may pass ere I again
Shall sit beside thy feet.
My favourite place! — I could look up,
And meet in weal or woe
The kindest looks I ever knew —
That I shall ever know.
How many hours have pass'd away
In that accustom'd place,
Thy answer lighting, ere it came,
That kind and thoughtful face.
How many sorrows, many cares,
Have sought thee like a shrine!
Thoughts that have shunn'd all other thoughts,
Were trusted safe to thine.
How patient, and how kind thou wert!
How gentle in thy words!
Never a harsh one came to mar
The spirit's tender chords.
In hours of bitter suffering,
Thy low, sweet voice was near; ,
And every day it grew more kind,
And every day more dear.
The bitter feelings were assuaged,
The angry were subdued,
Ever thy gentle influence
Call'd back my better mood.
Am I too happy now? — I feel
Sometimes as if I were;
The future that before me lies,
Has many an unknown care.
I cannot choose but marvel too.
That this new love can be
More powerful within my heart.
Than what I feel for thee.
Didst thou, thyself, once feel such love
So strong within the mind,
That for its sake thou wert content
To leave all else behind?
And yet I do not love thee less —
I even love thee more;
I ask thy blessing, ere I go
Far from my native shore!
How often shall I think of thee.
In many a future scene!
How can affection ever be
To me, what thine has been.
How many words, scarce noticed now,
Will rise upon my heart,
Touch'd with a deeper tenderness,
When we are far apart!
I do not say, forget me not,
For thou will not forget;
Nor do I say, regret me not,
I know thou wilt regret.
And bitterly shall I regret
The friend I leave behind,
I shall not find another friend
So careful and so kind.
I met thee when my childish thoughts
Were fresh from childhood's hours,
That pleasant April time of life,
Half fancies arid half flowers.
Since then how many a change and shade
In life's web have been wrought!
Change has in every feeling been,
And change in every thought
But there has been no change in thee,
Since to thy feet I came,
In joy or sorrow's confidence,
And still thou wert the same.
Farewell, my own beloved friend!
A few years soon pass by;
And the heart makes its own sweet home
Beneath a stranger sky.
A home of old remembrances
Where old affections dwell;
While Hope, that looks to other days.
Soothes even this farewell.
Strong is the omen at my heart.
That we again shall meet;
God bless thee, till I take, once more,
My own place at thy feet!
Letitia Elizabeth Landon. May 1838
From Blanchard's Literary Remains
[UNTITLED] FROM THE ALBUM OF LOVE, 1841
[1]
——————I do love violets !
They tell the history of woman's love ;
They open with the earliest breath of spring ;
Lead a sweet life of perfume, dew and light,
And, if they perish, perish with a sigh
Delicious as that life. On the hot June
They shed no perfume : the flowers may remain
But the rich breathing of their leaves is past. —
The violet breath of love is purity.
Quoted from 'Roland's Tower, A Legend of the Rhine' in the Improvisatrice
[2]
It is the spirit's bitterest pain
To love and be beloved again,
And yet between a gulf which ever
The hearts that burn to meet must sever.
O'er some Love's shadow may but pass
As passes the breath-stain o'er glass ;
And pleasures, cares, and pride combined
Fill up the blank Love leaves behind.
But there are some whose love is high,
Entire, — almost idolatry ;
Who, turning from a heartless world,
Ask some dear thing which may renew
Affection's sever'd links, and be
As true as they themselves are true.
But Love's bright fount is never pure,
And all his pilgrims must endure
All passion's mighty suffering
Ere they may reach the blessed spring.
And some who waste their lives to find
A prize which they may never win ;
Like those who seek for Irem's groves,
Which found, they may not enter in.
And some there are who leave the path ,
In agony and fierce disdain,
And bear upon each wounded heart
The scar that never heals again.
Quoted from 'The Improvisatrice'
[3]
Love is like the glass
That throws its own rich colour over all,
And makes all beautiful. The morning looks
Its very loveliest when the fresh air
Has tinged the cheek we love with its glad red ;
And the hot noon flits by most rapidly
When dearest eyes gaze with us on the page
Bearing the poet's words of love : — and then
The twilight walk when the link'd arms can feel
The beating of the heart : upon the air
There is a music never heard but once, —
A light the eyes can never see again ;
Each star has its own prophecy of hope,
And every song and tale that breathe of love
Seem echoes of the heart.
Quoted from 'Roland's Tower, A Legend of the Rhine' in the Improvisatrice
[4]
Love, passionate young Love, how sweet it is
To have the bosom made a paradise
By thee, life-lighted with thy rainbow smile !
Quoted from 'A Village Tale' in The Improvisatrice
[5]
Oh ! if thou lov'st,
And art a woman, hide thy love from him
Whom thou dost worship ; never let him know
How dear he is ; flit like a bird before him, —
Lead him from tree to tree, from flower to flower ;
But be not won, or thou may'st, like that bird,
When caught and caged, be left to pine neglected,
And perish in forgetfulness.
Quoted from 'Fragment - Do any thing but love' from The Literary Gazette, 1823
[6]
Oh ! where is there the heart but knows
Love's first steps are upon the rose ? —
The first, the very first ; oh ! none
Can feel again as they have done ;
In love, in war, in pride, in all
The planets of life's coronal,
However beautiful and bright,
What can be like their first sweet light ?
Quoted from 'The Troubadour, Canto I'
[7]
———————Still there clings
An earth-stain to the fairest things ;
And love, that most delicious gift
Upon life's shrine of sorrow left,
Has its own share of suffering.
A shade falls from its radiant wing,
A spot steals o'er its sunny brow,
Fades the rose-lip's witching glow.
'Tis well — for earth were too like heaven
If length of life to love were given.
Quoted from 'Inez' in The Improvisatrice
[8]
'Tis something if in absence we can trace
The footsteps of the past : it soothes the heart
To breathe the air scented in other years
By lips beloved, to wander through the groves
Where once we were not lonely ; where the rose
Reminds us of the hair we used to wreathe
With its fresh buds, — where every hill and vale,
And wood and fountain, speak of time gone by,
And Hope springs up in joy from Memory's ashes.
Quoted from 'The Guerilla Chief' in The Improvisatrice
[9]
Where is the heart that hath not bow'd,
A slave, Eternal Love ! to thee ?
Look on the cold, the gay, the proud,
And is there one among them free ?
The cold, the proud, — oh ! Love has turn'd
The marble till with fire it burn'd ;
The gay, the young, — alas ! that they
Should ever bend beneath thy sway !
Look on the cheek the rose might own,
The smile around like sunshine thrown ;
The rose, the smile alike are thine,
To fade and darken at thy shrine.
And what must love be in a heart
All passion's fiery depths concealing,
Which has, in its minutest part,
More than another's depth of feeling ?
Quoted from 'The Troubadour, Canto II'